More Books to finish out 2015

I've been keeping up with my book reading goal.

"Shopaholic to the Rescue" by Sophie Kinsella. You caught me. I like trash fiction, even when I'm not lounging on the beach. So sue me. haha. But even I didn't like this one. I got about half way through and then gave up. No real substance and the plot was boring. The Shopaholic ship has sailed.

"Nobody's Cuter than You" by Melanie Shankle. She also wrote "Green Sparkly Earrings" and one other one. This one about her appreciation for her friends was deemed to be her best yet but unfortunately I preferred her first book much better. She goes into a lot of detail about her youth and friendships, which unfortunately, I just didn't care about. It was like reading someone's uninteresting diary. But every now and then she'd throw in some insightful life lesson and it did get me thinking about all the relationships in my life that I'm thankful for, but as a whole, the book didn't do it for me. That being said, she's a funny writer and I would say check out her other work. Plus she has an awesome Southern accent so if you ever listen to her on a podcast you'll thank me:)

"Bittersweet" by Shauna Niequist. This is my first by this author, who I'd heard about for a while. After listening to her on a podcast and her revealing that this was her most vulnerable book, I decided to start here. The theme of this book is change, and how trials and change can be both bitter and sweet. She is open and honest about times of hardship in her own life, with job losses, miscarriages, etc... I appreciate that she doesn't try to seem all knowing about getting through hard stuff. She admits plenty of times when she did things wrong. But the self-reflection and striving to be better aspect is really what kept me engaged. The book is chopped up into essays that are related but can be read on their own, as well. There is one chapter called "Say Something", in which she talks about grief and how when one is going through something hard, it's baffling to know that life is going on all around you. "When something bad happens, people say the wrong things so often. They say weird, hurtful things when they're trying to be nice... But there's something worse than the things people say. It's when people say nothing... I remember exactly who walked the other direction when they saw me at church and who walked toward me (p.117)." This really struck me because this year has been a year of a lot of difficulty for people I care about. And there have been so many times when I am grieving for them in my heart but at a total loss about what to say to their face. But that doesn't mean we should let that fear stop us from acting. I'm thankful that even when I didn't know what to say, I simply put a card in the mail that said, "I don't know what to say, but I care." It's not about the words you say, it's about the saying something. It's about showing up when you know others are peddling backwards with fear and uncertainty. It's about that person knowing that even months after the heart of the trial is over, you haven't forgotten. You still think of them and what they went through, just as they are continuing to do as well. I always try to put myself in someone else's shoes... what would I want someone to do or say if I was diagnosed with cancer? What would help me if my child was sick? What would lift me higher out of my grief if I lost a child? I try to think through those questions and then do. I hope you do too. It doesn't take much, but it does take something.